When will this change?

Oh well, another tiresome whole day of scheduled power suspension. They may say we’re in the wet season, but it gets humid just the same. Maybe, they call it “wet” because you get wet with sweat. There wouldn’t be no work to be hampered in government offices. But in the private workplaces, even before employees time in, computers wouldn’t be able to charge. The same would go for phones. At the same time, homebodies wouldn’t be able to turn on their televisions, washing machines, refrigerators and most miserably, electric fans and air conditioning units. This misfortune spreads across almost the whole congressional district. I guess, this is the way it is, and this is the way it is going to be. When will we enjoy a smooth, reliable, uninterrupted supply of electricity? That would be a wonderful age in time. Don’t some nations which are in the size of a city, with very limited sources and resources get to generate the push of electrons within cables in an efficient manner of service? When will this change?

Don’t worry. We have some options. If you or your office has one, you could cut from the budget to buy some expensive gasoline to let that generator set rumble all day long. After a while, you’d get accustomed to the noise. It would be nice to plan a day-long swimming excursion. When you get home, you wouldn’t even notice that the power went out at all. You could spend the hours in a mall of your choice. The cinemas have been showing movies again for weeks now. Just bring enough cash. Still, many people would endure the extended period of power drought at their homes, enduring the heat and boredom, managing to finish house chores, and pass time with activities which are taken for granted when lights are not out. It would be nice to converge under some foliage or in the covered courts and have some outdoor cookout. What did our great great grandparents do at the time when electricity was a thing unheard of? When will this change?

I’ve been so plagued with the thought of the weekend worries, that I forgot that by that time the outgoing administration will have ended, and the incoming one will have officially and really started for a couple of days already. Has it been six years? It felt like longer than that. Honestly, it feels like the Noynoy Aquino administration was some twenty years ago. Some six years ago, they told us that change was coming. The nation was promised that within six months, the drug problem would be ended . If not, the President would resign from office. I’m not really sure how they define “drug problem”, “end”, and “resign”. Within the early part of the last six years, “tokhang” and “extra-judicial killings” have become common bywords. EJK even made it to the US and Europe. Do you remember Kian de los Santos? Google the name. There were others like him. There were many suspected prominent players in the illicit drug trade who were killed in suspicious circumstances, or were arrested and eventually got killed in suspicious circumstances while in prison. The scenes would have looked exciting in a crime suspense movie.

Within the last six-year period, they finally found a way for former President Ferdinand Marcos (yes, the senior one whom the world acknowledges as a dictator who drained the nation of wealth) to be laid to rest at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Supporters of this move used his military service as an argument. (Does not his infamy cancel that qualification?) Little did we know that this event would be a prelude to events some years after. Oh, well. Along with this event, we honor with highest respects former Sen. Leila De Lima, (despite what they have made the records to indicate, still) former Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno, former COMELEC Commissioner Andres Bautista, the first ever Filipino Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Maria Ressa for championing freedom of the press, and ABS-CBN and its network of media services and industry which has provided employment to hundreds across the nation. I would add to the ranks, 14th Vice President of the Republic of the Philippines, Leni Robredo, who was treated with less than the respect due the person holding the office. Remember how she was appointed as anti-drug czar in November 2019, only to be harassed and fired a few weeks after. These were the changes that came. I always looked forward for them to end, for a fairer tomorrow. Now, we’re here. The six years is over. We have another six years to go.

““To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self…” -Ephesians 4:22-23